Consequences For Unruly Airline Passengers

I was reading a twitter thread about a journalist who got harangued by her Trump supporting seat mate on a plane ride.  She had the window seat and felt trapped as he ranted about how the media lied and wrote fake news and were the enemy of America.  Fortunately, the flight attendants responded quickly when she rang the alarm button and got her another seat.

But as I thought about it, why she should she have to move?  He's the one who should be inconvenienced for his bad behavior, not her.  He should be moved.  Maybe there should be some 'time-out' seats for such passengers like there is for kids who can't behave.

OK, I understand that airlines aren't going to leave seats unused in this seat-squeezing era.  And often trying to make the belligerent passengers on the plane move can cause them to become more hostile and dangerous.

BUT, such passengers should be guaranteed that they'll get off the plane with a 'no-fly' penalty.  It's something the FAA should enforce across all airlines and the length of the penalty should be appropriate to the disturbance and the passenger's record.  And refusing to move when asked to would surely increase the length on one's ban.  And important people shouldn't be able to get their penalties waived, though if they're wealthy enough they can probably hire private planes.

Are there due process and other legal questions involved here?  Due process surely.  We don't want passengers arbitrarily punished.  Passengers witnessing such a situation should get their phones out and record the incident because sometimes the victim can't while it's happening.

I would guess that being banned from planes is something that doesn't have to go to the courts, but I'm not sure. Not being able to fly might jeopardize some people's jobs, but that seems to be a good  incentive.  But they wouldn't be deprived of 'life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness" as they would with a jail sentence.  Well, maybe it would hinder their pursuit of happiness a bit.  But it seems that people who harass others probably are already having difficulties in their pursuit of happiness.

I'm sure some attorney would find a way to sue on behalf of such a client, but attorneys for the airlines and FAA should be able to  draft a workable policy.  It would include some descriptions of unacceptable behaviors.

The basic violation would be:
Physically or verbally disturb another passenger or passengers after being told to stop.

Then examples of what that looks like and levels of severity would be listed along with the consequences.

Other passengers would be encouraged to record such incidents and to alert flight attendants before it escalates.

These problem passengers would then be added to the no-fly list (probably more reasonably than others have been put on that list.)

After writing this I checked online whether such consequences already exist.  A 2010 NBC article cites a woman who was banned from a flight for using her phone after being told not to (she says was turning it off) :

“The airlines keep their own lists,” Bresson added. And those multiple no-fly lists create “a lot of confusion.”

That uncertainty is shared by officials at the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, a labor union representing more than 50,000 flight attendants at 22 airlines.
“Our (internal) air safety people aren’t even sure if those who have been charged with flight crew interference are even on the list,” said Corey Caldwell, spokeswoman for the AFA. “We would be interested to find out if people who have been charged — not found guilty but just initially charged with flight crew interference — even get on an airline (no-fly) list.”

A 2014 ABC  report says:

"American Airlines spokesperson Josh Freed said the airline has its own no-fly list -- separate from the government's -- that unruly passengers could potentially be added to.
'When we handle cases of disruptive passengers, one option is denying future travel,' Freed said. He stressed that that rarely happens. .  .
Delta Airlines and United Airlines, two other airlines involved in recent flight diversions, did not respond to ABC News' request for comment."

[I'd note that declining to comment sometimes happens because people weren't given enough time before the story aired.  That said, I emailed the media folks at Alaska Airlines on Wednesday May 1, and held up this post hoping I could add their policy on this, but I've heard nothing back.  If I do, I'll add it here or in a new post.]